Ásíyih Khánum, the Mother of Consolation

A retelling based on The Chosen Highway by Lady Blomfield, which records the spoken recollections of Bahíyyih Khánum, the Greatest Holy Leaf, and of her niece Túbá Khánum. Words in quotation marks are quoted from that book. The date of the marriage is from H. M. Balyuzi, Bahá'u'lláh, The King of Glory.

Ásíyih Khánum was the only daughter of a Persian vizier, Mírzá Ismá'íl. Her father, like Bahá'u'lláh's father, Mírzá Buzurg, possessed great wealth. Her brother married Bahá'u'lláh's sister, and she herself married Bahá'u'lláh, in about October 1835, when she was very young. Of this double alliance between two noble families, people said: "It is adding wealth to wealth."

Her daughter, Bahíyyih Khánum, later described the wedding treasures: "forty mules were loaded with her possessions when she came to her husband's home." For six months before the marriage a jeweller had worked at her home, and even the buttons of her garments were of gold set with precious stones. "These buttons were destined to be exchanged for bread, on the terrible exile journey from Tihran to Baghdad."

Bahíyyih Khánum remembered her mother this way: "I wish you could have seen her as I first remember her, tall, slender, graceful, eyes of dark blue — a pearl, a flower amongst women." She spoke of her as "full of consideration for everybody, gentle, of a marvelous unselfishness."

Even in the early years of their marriage, she said, her parents took as little part as possible in State functions, social ceremonies and the luxurious habits of wealthy families. They preferred to care for the poor and for anyone who was unhappy or in trouble. "From our doors nobody was ever turned away; the hospitable board was spread for all comers." Poor women came to Ásíyih Khánum with their troubles and were comforted by her. "Whilst the people called my father 'The Father of the Poor,' they spoke of my mother as 'The Mother of Consolation.'"

Bahá'u'lláh addressed her as "Navvab," which her granddaughter Túbá Khánum, a daughter of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, explained was "a title of great courtesy and respect, used by Persian noblemen to their wives." Túbá Khánum was seven years old when her grandmother died, and she remembered: "She was very beautiful, kind, and gentle. Everybody in trouble went to her for comfort."

This is a retelling. For the full account, see The Chosen Highway by Lady Blomfield.

Blomfield, L.. (1940). *The Chosen Highway*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust.